Luca Ghiotto – Behind the visor

We went behind the visor with Luca Ghiotto before the Monaco Grand prix to discuss the design of his helmet and delve into the back story of where it all began.

The start of this season sparked a colour change for the Italian, who switched to mark the 10-year anniversary of the retirement from racing of his father, Franco Ghiotto. Below, he talks us through the decision and the key features of his 2019 lid.

“The actual design of the helmet comes from one that my father made for himself back in 2008. On older versions, my colours were different to his but I am now using the yellow which he used. This is the first year that I’m using the bright yellow because previously I had always used orange, which began when I first started in 2008. So, this year has been a bit of a change on the helmet side for me.

“My father raced for 15 years - he didn’t race at a super high level, but he was in Italian Championships and F3 and he got good results and won many races, so he was a good driver. This is an exact copy of his last helmet, apart from the blue and I think that he had some silver where mine is white. Everything else is the same as his was though.

“I wanted to do this for him because he’s a big part of the reason why I am here. My father was the person who got me into racing and he stopped to let me race. He finished racing in 2009, so I thought that it would be good to add yellow this season as it has now been ten years since he raced. I know how much he enjoyed racing and he would still be doing it now if he could, so I think that with me in the car, it is like he is still racing as well. He has been stronger than me during my career many times, so I really owe everything to him and I’m really proud to have these colours on my helmet. Plus, I think that I am doing what he deserved to.

“If you look at the right side of the helmet then you can see that the design is made up of a large letter G. The rest of the helmet is designed to fit around the G. There is also a section that features the yellow and blue colours of my team UNI-Virtuosi. The team has black as well but I changed this to white because I don’t like black helmets, plus they get too warm so it is better to have white.

“I have also got the Italian flag on the helmet and some really, really nice details relating to this on the tear offs. The only problem with this is that once they come off, the Italian flag is gone. In the future, I would like to add more colours relating to the Italian flag, because you can see the Italian flag close up, but not when I am driving.

“I really like it though and it is a design that I have always had, so I tend to keep it because I think that the helmet is the only thing that makes you recognise the driver, other than the number of the car. So, it is good to always keep the same design. Even though I have changed the colours, if you put last year’s helmet beside this one then you can still tell that it is mine.”